Multisensory Processing and Perceptual Consciousness: Part I

Philosophy Compass 11/2 (2016): 121–133, 10.1111/phc3.12227 Multisensory Processing and Perceptual Consciousness: Part I Robert Eamon Briscoe* Ohio University Abstract Multisensory processing encompasses all of the various ways in which the presence of information in one sensory modality can adaptively inf luence the processing of information in a different modality. In Part I of this survey article, I begin by presenting a cartography of some of the more extensively investigated forms of multisensory processing, with a special focus on two distinct types of multisensory integration. I brief ly discuss the conditions under which these different forms of multisensory processing occur as well as their important perceptual consequences and interrelations. In Part II, I then turn to examining of some of the different possible ways in which the structure of conscious perceptual experience might also be characterized as multisensory. In addition, I discuss the significance of research on multisensory processing and multisensory consciousness for philosophical attempts to individuate the senses. 1. Introduction Multisensory processing, as understood here, encompasses all of the various ways in which the presence of information in one sensory modality can adaptively inf luence the way information is processed in a different modality.1 Multisensory processes are adaptive in the sense that they function to enhance the accuracy of perception and the control of perceptually guided actions.2 Some forms of multisensory processing, for example, deal with the challenge of tracking or identifying objects and events crossmodally. When sensory signals in different modalities have been identified as having a common origin in the external environment (or the perceiver’s body), other forms of multisensory processing address the problem of integrating them and, importantly, reconciling them when they conf lict. Some of these operate on very short time-scales, while others involve the slow recalibration of one modality to another. This will be a two-part survey article. In this first part, I begin by presenting a cartography of some of the more extensively investigated forms of multisensory processing, with a special focus on two distinct types of multisensory integration. Research on multisensory processing, it will become clear, provides reasons to be skeptical that an account of perception as a whole can be constructed on a sense-by-sense basis, treating different perceptual modalities as explanatorily independent building blocks. In the second part of this survey, I turn to examining of some of the different possible ways in which the structure of conscious perceptual experience might also be characterized as multisensory. To anticipate, perceptual consciousness might be multisensory only in the minimal sense that experiences in different modalities are sometimes simultaneously co-conscious.Alternatively, perceptual consciousness might be multisensory in the more robust sense that certain aspects of your overall experience of the world at a given moment in time are not always specific to a particular modality. For example, when you see and hear a kettle at boil, the kettle may be represented in a non-modality-specific way as the common object of both vision and audition (O’Callaghan 2012, 2014; Bayne 2014). These are just two of the possibilities to be considered. © 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 122 Multisensory Processing and Perceptual Consciousness: Part I Another aim of the second part of this survey will be to examine the significance of research on multisensory processing and multisensory consciousness for philosophical attempts to individuate the senses, that is, to explain what distinguishes one sense from another. As we shall see, the multisensory character of perception significantly complicates attempts to individuate the senses by means of certain commonly applied criteria. 2. Some Varieties of Multisensory Processing The purpose of this section is to present a cartography of some of the more extensively studied forms of multisensory processing. I briefly discuss the conditions under which these different forms of multisensory processing occur as well as their important perceptual consequences and interrelations. 2.1. MULTISENSORY CAUSAL INFERENCE Proximal sensory signals underdetermine their distal sources in the world. A given pattern of retinal stimulation, for example, could be caused by the light ref lected from many different 3D scenes (this is the so-called ‘inverse optics’ problem for vision). The fundamental challenge faced by any perceptual system, according to recently inf luential Bayesian models of perception, is to infer the most probable cause of a given pattern of proximal sensory stimulation on the basis of (1) the low-level cues present in the pattern itself, i.e.,properties of the pattern that are predictive of properties in the environment, and (2) pre-wired or learned assumptions about the environment’s statistical structure (the perceptual system’s ‘prior knowledge’ about the world). Call this challenge the unisensory causal inference problem.3 Multiple perceptual systems are very often activated simultaneously, however. Everyday motor actions, like knocking on a door or preparing a cup of tea, typically generate visual, tactile, auditory, and proprioceptive feedback at the same time. In addition to the problem of unisensory causal inference, there is thus also the problem of multisensory causal inference,the challenge of determining when sensory signals received in different modalities have the same distal cause and when they do not (Bedford 2001, Körding et al. 2007, Shams & Beierholm 2010, Landy et al. 2011, Shams 2012). Bedford (2001) refers to this challenge as the ‘object identity decision’, while van Dam et al. (2014) refer to it as the ‘correspondence problem’. Multisensory causal inference is frequently discussed in connection with the binding problem in perceptual psychology and neuroscience (Treisman 1999, 2003; Robertson 2003; for philosophical discussion, see Deroy 2014, O’Callaghan 2014, and de Vignemont 2014a). In the unisensory visual case, for example, the problem is that of explaining how features represented in anatomically different visual processing areas of the brain are properly attributed or ‘bound’ to each of the various objects visible in a scene. In the multisensory case, the problem is that of characterizing those processes in virtue of which features represented by different modalities are attributed to either to the same or different objects. Shams & Beierholm (2010) write: ‘At any given moment, an individual typically receives multiple sensory signals from the different modalities and needs to determine which of these signals originated from the same object and should be combined and which originated from different objects and should not be bound together’ (425). Multisensory causal inference, they suggest, is the process whereby the multisensory binding problem is solved. Solving the multisensory causal inference problem involves different types of information. One source of information is the prior (subjective) probability that a set of signals arising in different modalities have a common cause. On the Bayesian approach, this is sometimes referred to as a ‘coupling prior’ (Ernst 2006, Helbig & Ernst 2007). An additional ‘bottom-up’ kind of evidence for such inference is spatio-temporal congruence. Signals that originate in the same region © 2016 The Author(s) Philosophy Compass 11/2 (2016): 121–133, 10.1111/phc3.12227 Philosophy Compass © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Multisensory Processing and Perceptual Consciousness: Part I 123 of space and at the same time, other things being equal, are more likely to have a common cause than those that don’t. One way to characterize spatio-temporal congruence is in terms of the number of ‘amodal’ attributes shared by objects represented in two or more modalities (Welch 1999). These include: (1) location; (2) shape; (3) size; (4) orientation; (5) texture; (6) kinetic properties; (7) temporal onset; and (8) temporal frequency. These attributes are amodal – or better multi-modal – in the sense that they can be perceived through more than one modality. They are, as philosophers would say, ‘common sensibles’ as opposed to ‘proper sensibles’. 2.2. OPTIMIZING MULTISENSORY INTEGRATION Capacities for multisensory causal inference, however they are implemented, are necessary for what I shall here refer to as optimizing multisensory integration (or O-integration for short). The initial estimates of a property produced by different modalities can conf lict. For example, audition and vision might produce different initial estimates of the time or location at which an event in the environment occurs. Alternatively, vision and touch might produce conf licting initial estimates of an object’s shape or orientation. Such intersensory discrepancies can arise for a variety reasons. One modality may simply have a finer grain when it comes to discriminating the relevant property. Initial estimates may also conf lict due to the inherent noisiness of neural computation (for discussion, see Knill & Pouget, 2004). According to the currently inf luential ‘maximum likelihood estimation’ (MLE) approach in cognitive science (Bennett et al. 2014 and van Dam et al. 2014 are helpful primers), O-integration occurs when initial estimates of a property provided by different modalities are weighted by their relative reliability

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